Performance has also been significantly improved, with the developer citing an increase in simulation speed of up to 15 times. Previews of simulations in the Maya viewport are GPU-accelerated.

No pricing details have been announced at time of writing, but should be available by the time you read this.

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Golaem sets new standards for crowd simulation in terms of performances and usability by releasing the new version of its plugin for Autodesk Maya: Golaem Crowd 2.0 at Siggraph 2012 Los Angeles.

On top of increased productivity, Golaem Crowd has a quicker than ever learning curve. Maya artists will be able to create crowd shots themselves or to test the assets they produce before giving them to TDs, hence strengthening the team efficiency.

Creating behaviors as easy as a drag-n-drop
No need to learn complex artificial intelligence concepts, Golaem Crowd 2.0 provides an easy way to build new characters behaviors.

Behavior Editor: create and assemble sophisticated behaviors with this new graphical editor.

New Triggers: control behaviors with frame number, volumetric triggers, or Python scripting…

New ready-to-use behaviors
Golaem Crowd also comes with new behaviors, helping to achieve more in less time.

Speeding up production
Whether to scale to thousands of character or simply to reduce artists’ waiting time, speed is critical to crowd simulation. Golaem Crowd 2.0 enables artists to get results and previzualisation quicker than ever.

Multithread & Optimization: Golaem Crowd 2.0 is up to 15x quicker thanks to its new multithreaded and optimized simulation engine.